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Important: Adapt the guide as you see fit. This is for a pure life Wind Druid.
Content:
I. The Basics
II. FCR, FHR, FBR
III. Stats and Allocation
IV. Skills and Allocation
V. Items
VI. Mercenary
VII. PvP Strategies
VIII. PvM Strategies
I. The Basics
Wind druids are probably the druid build most suited for PvP, of course this is arguable, and a lot depends on the player. There is no class that can consistently beat a wind druid. And once you get the hang of things, the only class that will really give you trouble is a good Trapsin that uses Mind Blast often, a fast necromancer, or a good Whirl Barb.
II. Faster Cast Rate, Faster Hit Recovery, and Faster Block Rate Breakpoints
*FCR
18 frames = base
17 frames = 4%
16 frames = 10%
15 frames = 19%
14 frames = 30%
13 frames = 46%
12 frames = 68%
11 frames = 99%
10 frames = 163%
If you’re rich, go for the 10th frame. You can at least get 11 frames if you’re middle class to poor.
*FHR
Wielding Swinging Weapons (Flails or hammers like HoTO, Earthshaker, axes like Islestrike)
14 frame = 0%
13 frame = 3%
12 frame = 7%
11 frame = 13%
10 frame = 19%
9 frame = 29%
8 frame = 42%
7 frame = 63%
6 frame = 99%
5 frame = 174%
4 frame = 456%
Wielding Stabbing Weapons (Daggers such as Wizardspike, spears, pikes)
13 frame = 0%
12 frame = 5%
11 frame = 10%
10 frame = 16%
9 frame = 26%
8 frame = 39%
7 frame = 56%
6 frame = 86%
5 frame = 152%
4 frame = 377%
As you can see here, wielding different types of weapons will change how much FHR you need. The faster you can recover from a hit by your opponent, the faster you can 1) tele away to recast or 2) spam more tornados. And as swinging weapons take more FHR to reach the same frame, it may be more advantageous to you to use Wizardspike as it'll be easier to reach 5 frames. But if you have enough FHR (small charms, etc) then by all means continue using that Hoto.
*FBR
11 frame = 0%
10 frame = 6%
9 frame = 13%
8 frame = 20%
7 frame = 32%
6 frame = 52%
5 frame = 86%
4 frame = 174%
3 frame = 600%
I don't really recommend this, as it just means a waste of points so that you won't get hit 3 out of 4 times...and a reduce of your life.
Formula for blocking:
Total Blocking = (Blocking * (Dexterity - 15)) / (Character Level * 2)
III. Stats and Allocation
Strength: None.
Dexterity: None.
Life: All of your points should be in here. Reason explained in FBR section.
Energy: None.
More life means that you’ll be able to survive the hits more.
IV. Skills and Allocation
*Elemental Skills
20 Tornado (The main skill you’re using, it deals physical damage in a random path, which is determined by where you're standing, it can sometimes hit twice or more)
20 Hurricane (The secondary attack skill, it doesn't always do huge damage but it can help, chill the opponent, and make them mistakenly put on cold resist/absorb)
20 Cyclone Armor (VERY important defensive skill, this has saved me so many times, you are basically shredded against the huge damage spells now without this, it adds damage to Tornado and very important duration to Hurricane, oh and it has zero resistance, good against cold sorceresses, and if you have negative resistance, but slightly saddening if you have positive or even maxed)
20 Twister (Synergy to all the wind skills)
1 Arctic Blast (prerequisite)
*Summons
20 Oak Sage (Huge life boost)
1 Summon Grizzly (Great decoy and sometimes damage dealer. Useful in PvM)
1 Raven (prerequisite)
1 Dire Wolves (prerequisite)
1 Spirit Wolves (prerequisite. Best to use this in PvP)
Get 1 point into Spirit Wolves if you are dueling.
V. Items
*Weapon
Rich: Heart of the Oak rune word Flail, as perfect as possible. 40% FCR, 3 to all skills, add to it 30-40 resistances make this runeword the ultimate caster weapon.
Middle class: Spirit sword with perfect FCR. 35% FCR, 2 to all skills, and 55% FHR.
Poor: Either any Spirit sword or Wizardspike.
*Switch Weapon
Rich: Call to Arms sword with perfect BO. Use it for the Battle Command and Battle Orders it provides. More life and mana for you. It is a must to have a Call to Arms.
Middle class: Any Call to Arms sword.
Poor: Anything you choose. Wand with Amplify Damage to do more damage to bosses, and etc.
*Shield
Rich: Spirit Monarch with perfect FCR. Helps you get to at least 99% FCR. 55% FHR, 2 to all skills and + to mana are sweet as well. Use Stormshield if you wish in PvP.
Middle class: Any Spirit Monarch.
Poor: Lidless Wall
*Switch Shield
Rich: Spirit Monarch with perfect FCR. Boost your Battle Orders level by another 2.
Middle class: Any Spirit Monarch.
Poor: Lidless Wall
*Armor
Rich: Enigma. You will need this for teleing. Gives strength so that you will not need to put points into strength.
Middle class: Perfect Vipermagi. Adds resistances, FCR, and 1 to all skills.
Poor: Any Vipermagi.
*Helm
Rich: Druid circlet. +2 to Druid skills/20 fcr/2 socket/Strength. Best helm for a Wind Druid, but extremely expensive. Socket it with Shaels (Faster Hit Recovery)or Ber (Reduce damage) or Jah (5% max life per rune). Then there's Crown of Ages if you need more DR.
Middle class: Harlequin Crest. Socket with runes above.
Poor: Jalal's Mane. 30% FHR, 2 To Druid Skills, +30 resistances, 20 To Strength and Energy or any pelt with 2 to Druid Skills, + to tornado/hurricane, and 1 or 2 sockets. Add 2 to skills.
*Belt
Rich: Arachnid's Sash. Most popular caster belt, it gives 20% FCR and 1 to all skills.
Middle class: Crafted Caster belt. Try to get + to strength in the mods as well. Gives 5-10 FCR.
Poor: Any crafted Caster belt. You need the FCR.
*Gloves
Rich: Magefists. Gives 20% FCR. It's either this or Wizardspike gloves, but I prefer legit.
Middle class: Magefists.
Poor: Magefists. This is a easy to find gloves.
*Boots
Rich: Ethereal Sandstorm Treks. 20% FHR, +10-15 strength and vitality. It also gives you poison resistances.
Middle class: Sandstorm Treks.
Poor: Waterwalks, Silkweave, Aldur's Advance
*Amulet
Rich: rare/crafted Amulet with +2 druid, 20% FCR, and strength/resistances.
Middle class: Mara's Kaleidoscope. +2 to skills, resistance,
Poor: Magical amulet-3 to elemental skills and 10% FCR or life.
*Rings
Rich: Dual SoJ's or BK's. Soj's give mana while BK's give life.
Middle class: Dual rare rings with 10% FCR, resistances, and/or strength. Could be for the rich.
Poor: Dual rings with 10% FCR.
*Charms
Rich: 9 Elemental skill charms with life, Druid Hellfire Torch, resistance small charms, and Annihilus (As perfect as possible). More added skills. If you don't have the amount of FHR then switch some of the lifers out for FHR ones.
Middle class: Elemental skill charm(s), Druid Hellfire Torch, and possibly Annihilus.
Poor: Resistance charms, FHR charms.
VI. Mercenary
The top choice is, of course, an Act 2 Defensive mercenary, hired from Nightmare difficulty. His Holy Freeze aura will slow down enemies, allowing the Druid ample time to get into a good spot and start spamming tornados.
Gear
*Weapon
Rich: Ethereal Reaper's Toll is the top choice here. As its chance to cast Decrepify lowers enemy physical resistances and thus, allows you to do greater damage to the enemies.
Middle class: Perfect Insight in an ethereal Colossus Voulge. This gives you the mana regeneration, and allows your mercenary to easily kill enemies at a fast pace.
Poor: Any Insight.
*Armor
Rich: Perfect Fortitude in an ethereal bugged heavy or medium armor. More defense for your mercenary, 300% enhanced damage is useful as well.
Middle class: Any Fortitude, Treachery (chance to cast Fade) preferably in an ethereal heavy or medium armor. Treachery can be for the rich depending on the armor (ethereal and bugged or not).
Poor: Treachery (chance to cast Fade), Tooththrow, or any armor that you have available. Griswold’s armor is good because once socketed with 3 perfect amethysts, it gives enough strength to your merc so that he can use a Colossus Voulge.
*Helm
Rich: Crown of Ages with 2 sockets. Socket it with 2 Ber runes for extra DR. This becomes godly with it already having +1 To All Skills, Damage Reduced By 10-15%, All Resistances +20-30, and +30% Faster Hit Recovery
Middle class: Andariel’s Visage Ral’d or ethereal perfect Vampire Gaze. Strength for Andariel’s Visage as well as IAS and resistances. Vampire Gaze is useful because of DR and life/mana leech.
Poor: Any Vampire Gaze.
VII. PvP Strategies
General
*Always scout the area that you are going to be dueling first. Note important things such as shrines, houses, and protruding walls at the turning of the walls. These are useful in your duel.
*A good way to fight against melee is to spam some tornados, towards them preferably, and teleing inside of the tornados. This gives you a kind of shield that melee will hesitate before attacking you.
*Tele randomly. Your opponents will then not know where you are coming from.
*Recast minions/Cyclone Armor whenever needed. It could be the edge you need to defeat someone.
Amazons
*Charged Strike: Your cyclone armor is a big help against these guys, and can take a few hits, but be careful not to let them hit you more then once without a recast.
Remember, they have to get into melee range to do damage, and this is where the wind druid shines, they will probably get dodge-locked from all the sources hitting them, so just finish them off with a few tornados as you hear their yips of death.
*Bowazon: If you don’t have Enigma this can be a hard fight, because smart ones will play very defensively, and you will probably never get close enough to hit them as they chip your life away, load on FRW (Faster Run/Walk) charms and hope you can chase them down, or simply teleport on top of them, but once you close the distance you should have an easy win due to dodge-lock, and you simply overpowering them.
Assassins
*Lightning Sentry/Mind Blast:
*Whirlwind: The worst of these will perhaps Dragon Flight you once, run away, and then whirlwind you when you’re at low life. There’s also the Weapon Block problem to consider when fighting dual-claw Whirlwinders, this is the only character that can block Tornado, and you may notice the duels taking a longer time, you really have little chance vs. the cheap ones, (cheaper perhaps) simply leave if you find you can’t beat them, my advice would be to run constantly and tornado around you so they may run through them. Don’t try to tank them for sure.
The ones who will simply act like a barb and whirlwind you are not quite as annoying, but still hard to defeat. Whenever you see them teleport to you, or whirlwind, run. Yes, it’s a bit cowardly, but probably the only way to win against a good one. Run just out of their low range and Tornado them, you should slowly chip them down, if you get hit, good luck, their open wounds and poison will make you easy pickings in a few seconds.
Barbarians
*Whirlwind: The only real concern are the ones who teleport on top of you and whirlwind, 90% of them you will be able to tank fairly easily, while they sit on their big ethereal swords and cry. The remaining ten have huge life and max damage reduction, and can take quite a few hits to bring down. Basic dueling tactics, sidestep their whirlwind and spam Tornado around you while they whirl through it.
*Warcryer: Never tried one yet. Haven't seen any around except for my own.
Druids
*Fury/Mauler: Don’t get close to them, run or teleport away and let them chase you, they can’t teleport in wereform, so let them run through Tornados to get to you.
*Fireclaws: A lot like a fireball sorceress, treat them like a Mauler, except that you can absorb a lot of their damage.
*Rabies: You may be able to get away with a quick teleport in and kill. If you are infected, charge, you probably don’t have a lot of time left, so you need to finish the duel.
*Wind elementalist: Extremely fun match. Trying to tank each other is random, it’s basically who has more life/damage, and who’s Tornado gets the right angle. Otherwise it’s just a game of teleport around each other and spam Tornado, hope one of you runs through a few. It’s a good test of skill generally.
*Fire elementalist: Never tried one.
Necromancers
*Bone: The minion stacking bug definitely helps us here. When you have just teleported, and have minions directly on top of you, bone spirit won't hit, unless the necromancer has 125% fcr you should be able to catch him, and if you can, he's probably dead. If they just want to run the whole match and spam teeth, it's not worth it in my opinion. Recast minions whenever possible. Also, if they get minions, it is still of no use, as tornado damages everything in its path, including the necro hiding beneath the minions.
*Poison: These guys can lower your life in just a couple of seconds. Good items to use include Death’s Set Gloves, Iratha’s Cuff set Amulet, and Tal runed Venom Ward. Stacked poison resist, +max poison resist, and poison length reduction are your friends. If they have Enigma, you may want to keep yours on for the teleport, if not, or if you run, use Tal'd Venom Ward, once you manage to lower their poison down to manageable levels you should use basic tactics for hunting down an old man. :)
*Summonmancer: Same thing for Bone necromancers, as they will use bone spear often.
Paladins
*Fist of the Heavens: Very easy if you have enough FCR. Simply tele on them and spam tornados. Recast Cyclone Armor as needed.
*Smiter/Charger: Very hard. Never attempt to tank them. If you wish, find two potholes that lies side by side and stay between them. The smiter has to go through the path and they will usually die if they go in that way. If they don't, try teleing backwards, spamming tornados while you do so. Try to never get hit. Recast minions as needed.
*Hammerdin: Pretty easy. Because of the summons bug, their hammers will hit your minions first. So tele straight on top of them or to the southern region and spam tornados at him. If they charge/tele around spamming hammers then you simply need instinct to know where they'll most likely stop, tele on top of him and spam the tornados.
*Ranger: Similar to the strategy for bowazons.
Sorceresses
If you don’t want to chase them all over the map, try spamming several tornados and then teleing backwards. Repeat. They will usually follow you and can get hit by the tornados.
*Orber: Not very hard. A fairly easy rule to follow is if you see your minions die as you yourself get hit, it’s a good time to recast cyclone. If they cast considerably faster than you and just want to run, you just have to wait them out, if they use Energy Shield it’s an easy fight, but they should die in a few Hurricanes or Tornados. If they maxed out their damage with facets their resists and life are generally fairly low. Remember that Cyclone ignores their cold mastery, good because there is no need/purpose to stacking resists.
*Blizzard: Your cyclone will probably only be able to take a single shard, and if you get hit again your dead, recast if you ever get hit, and chase them, they will probably resort to sitting in their own blizzard, so teleport in and kill them as fast as you can, otherwise their death facet blizzard may take you out. The key is their casting delay.
*Fire: the same damage as blizzard, but a lot faster and a lot more. Hopefully they use Energy Shield so you can drain their mana, making it easier to kill them, otherwise it’s basically a game of catch, they should die quickly as well though. It is a must to recast cyclone if you ever get hit. The key is that fireball is hard to aim.
*Lightning: Same thing as above.
VIII: PvM Strategies
Always have your merc, your spirit, and your wolves/bear beside you. Also, BO before going in battle. The usual method is teleing on top of the enemy and start spamming tornados. In the Chaos Sanctuary, however, attack the Oblivion Knights first, since if they cast Iron Maiden on your minions they will die almost instantly if they attack another enemy. Spam your tornados toward large groups of hostiles, as their random movement can usually hit the enemy more than once in a row.
Questions can be emailed to me at Sephirothangel@gmail.com, or simply posted here.
Edited by Sephirothangel, 30 July 2006 - 02:37 PM.
